Research tells us that writing instruction is much more effective when teachers use tools that will help students organize their thinking and ideas before writing. This is called the “Planning” stage of the writing process and this website is one of many that houses free graphic organizers for classroom use with students. Continue reading Use Graphic Organizers to Support Student Thinking and Writing
My Favorite No is a great assessment activity that turns students’ mistakes into collective opportunities for learning. It can be done with any math topic or content. It takes very little time, so teachers can do it often and weave it into the daily routine of their class. I learned about it from a middle school teacher named Leah Alcala through a video created for the Teaching Channel. Continue reading My Favorite No: A Great Way to Celebrate Student Mistakes in Math
The Common Core requires us to switch from writing personal essays built on our opinions and experience to text-based essays that respond to a prompt using evidence from paired texts. Continue reading Use Paired Texts to Explore Pros and Cons
Illustrative Mathematics is a great resource that brought together teachers, math educators and mathematicians to create mathematical tasks aligned to each standard of the Common Core. There are currently over 1000 tasks, from grades K through 12. Because it is K-12, some tasks will need to be adapted, but because it is K-12, there are rich materials for adult education students at all levels, from ABE to HSE. Continue reading Math Problems Aligned to the Common Core
Visual Patterns is a very simple and wonderful website, created by a public middle school teacher in Southern California named Fawn Nguyen.
The site is essentially a collection of 157 different visual patterns (and growing). For each pattern, you are given the first three figures/stages of the pattern. For example, Continue reading Developing Algebraic Thinking Through Visual Patterns